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Step 1: Planning Your Book Review – The Art of Getting Started. You’ve decided to take the plunge and share your thoughts on a book that has captivated (or perhaps disappointed) you. Before you start book reviewing, let’s take a step back and plan your approach.
Jan 19, 2023 · Adhere to a particular citation style, such as Chicago, MLA, or APA. Put your name at the very end of the book review text. The basic purpose of a book review is to convey and evaluate the following: a. what the book is about; b. the expertise of the author(s); c. how well the book covers its topic(s) and whether it breaks new ground; d.
- Ruth Wallach
- 2013
- What This Handout Is About
- What Is A Review?
- Becoming An Expert Reviewer: Three Short Examples
- Developing An Assessment: Before You Write
- Writing The Review
- In Review
- Works Consulted
This handout will help you write a book review, a report or essay that offers a critical perspective on a text. It offers a process and suggests some strategies for writing book reviews.
A review is a critical evaluation of a text, event, object, or phenomenon. Reviews can consider books, articles, entire genres or fields of literature, architecture, art, fashion, restaurants, policies, exhibitions, performances, and many other forms. This handout will focus on book reviews. For a similar assignment, see our handout on literature r...
Reviewing can be a daunting task. Someone has asked for your opinion about something that you may feel unqualified to evaluate. Who are you to criticize Toni Morrison’s new book if you’ve never written a novel yourself, much less won a Nobel Prize? The point is that someone—a professor, a journal editor, peers in a study group—wants to know what yo...
There is no definitive method to writing a review, although some critical thinking about the work at hand is necessary before you actually begin writing. Thus, writing a review is a two-step process: developing an argument about the work under consideration, and making that argument as you write an organized and well-supported draft. See our handou...
Once you have made your observations and assessments of the work under review, carefully survey your notes and attempt to unify your impressions into a statement that will describe the purpose or thesis of your review. Check out our handout on thesis statements. Then, outline the arguments that support your thesis. Your arguments should develop the...
Finally, a few general considerations: 1. Review the book in front of you, not the book you wish the author had written. You can and should point out shortcomings or failures, but don’t criticize the book for not being something it was never intended to be. 2. With any luck, the author of the book worked hard to find the right words to express her ...
We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance ...
An academic book review provides the main ideas, and since published book reviews typically have a limited word count, the summary should remain brief. Analysis and Significance. Compare the book and its argument with the other literature on the topic. Discuss its contribution to past and current research and literature.
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Jun 29, 2023 · A book review ends with a conclusion paragraph that summarizes the points made in the body paragraphs and shares any final thoughts the reviewer has about the book. It may include a rating, like giving the book three stars out of five. 4 tips for writing a book review 1. Avoid repetition. A book review is its own piece of writing. By that, we ...
- Lindsay Kramer
It is a fantasy, but the book draws inspiration from the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Rape of Nanking. Crime Fiction Lover reviews Jessica Barry’s Freefall, a crime novel: In some crime novels, the wrongdoing hits you between the eyes from page one. With others it’s a more subtle process, and that’s OK too.
By contrast, book reviews are most often a college assignment, but they also appear in many professional works: magazines, newspapers, and academic journals. They typically range from 500-750 words, but may be longer or shorter. A book review gives readers a sneak peek at what a book is like, whether or not the reviewer enjoyed it, and details ...
